


hold on to all the things you love

by atlantisairlock



Category: Ocean's 8 (2018)
Genre: Angst and Feels, Daphne Kluger Is A National Treasure, Developing Relationship, Emotional Baggage, F/F, Falling In Love, Future Fic, Press Tour, Press and Tabloids, Road Trips, Slow Burn, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-22
Updated: 2018-07-22
Packaged: 2019-06-14 10:40:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15386994
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/atlantisairlock/pseuds/atlantisairlock
Summary: Exploring Daphne Kluger and her relationship with press tours, hotel rooms and Lou Miller.





	hold on to all the things you love

**Author's Note:**

> for **themoviegeekstrikesback** \+ my discord pals **akuma, delicatepoem & loumillerlesbian**, who asked for: can you please write more of daphne x lou? i love debbie x lou but those two have an equally exciting chemistry. please tell me there's more leather daphne & lou in our collective futures. there was less leather than i expected but it's still there.
> 
> daphne somehow became my favourite character i am not completely sure how. her perspective is so wonderful to write. i love her so much.
> 
> title from 'wake up' by anthony neely.

The first time Daphne ever did a press tour, she was seven, and it _sucked_. 

Twenty years and about a hundred press tours later, she’s twenty-seven, and surprise, surprise - they still fucking suck! There is nothing about them she doesn’t loathe with all her being. Shuttling from state to state, country to country, day in, day out; being hounded by the paparazzi wherever she goes; having to answer inane question after inane question from condescending interviewers who think she’s only capable of discussing her outfit and her on-screen love interest like she didn’t get her degree at Vassar; never being able to settle; sleeping alone in cold, empty hotel rooms for months on end. If she never had to do a press tour ever again in her life, it would still be too soon.

It’s worse, after she joins the team. Before, with no real friends by her side, all her family (blessedly) six feet under and nobody warming her bed except random meaningless hookups, it was… easier, somehow. Lying alone in a five-star hotel room staring up at the ceiling at 2AM didn’t hurt as much, because she could rationalise it - back home, she’d be lying alone too, just that she’d be in the apartment she called her own. So really, it was about the same, and it never felt like she was leaving anything behind.

The first press tour she does after she joins them lasts just a week. It’s short by industry standards, but Daphne spends those seven days feeling hollow and lost, this horrible longing gnawing at her insides every hour of the day. She’ll have room service bringing up a gorgeous platter of food and think about the naan Amita serves up at the breakfast table every morning. A journalist will shove a camera in her face and her heart will leap with the thought of Constance and her cell phone always at the ready, catching Daphne unawares with a Snapchat filter on. Someone asks about Rose during a live interview, and all the breath leaves her lungs at one go.

It’s been so long since she had friends, _real_ friends, and she’s not used to missing people this much - missing people at all - and it hurts like a physical wound, being away from them. Not just her friends, but maybe her family, that’s what they are to her, now, if she’s going to be honest about it. 

The only thing that makes it worth it is going home. Lou picks her up at the airport in her beautiful bike and leather jacket, and Daphne’s knees go weak - from relief, mostly, and something else she doesn’t really want to think about. Everything aside, when she looks at Lou, it feels almost like an explosion, in her chest, in her mind, that one thought blinding and bright and overshadowing everything else - 

_I’m home._

 

 

The _next_ press tour she has to go on takes her across almost every single state in North America and will last for two months straight. When Daphne is informed she can feel her entire body just go still, her heart dropping into her shoes and the panic rising into her throat. 

When she goes home she’s crying - straight-up full-blown bawling and the girls nearly freak out. She doesn’t even know where it’s coming from, why she’s so hysterical. It takes them ten minutes to calm her down enough to get her talking about what exactly happened. 

She expects them to laugh, or mock her, or tell her to grow up and not be such a child. Instead Tammy hugs her tight, and Nine Ball goes to make her hot chocolate, and Debbie takes her hand and looks her in the eye and tells her it’s all going to be okay. 

“We’ll be right here waiting for you to come back,” she says firmly, and it sounds like a universal truth, the way she says it. “You’ll go, and shine for the world, and we’ll be watching you, every step of the way, and when the time comes for you to fly home, we will be right here.” 

They laugh with her and tease her and one time they spent Movie Marathon Monday pulling up her worst-rated flicks to gently rib her over but in these times, in these things, they make her feel like she’s loved, wanted, and worth it. It makes her eyes sting even more because it will be two months - two months, apart, away from them, in cold lonely hotel rooms facing patronising arrogant journalists and she is going to miss them deeply and terribly. 

They all pull her into warm, sincere embraces and she takes each one, but Lou lingers. Lou runs her fingers through Daphne’s hair and presses a gentle kiss to her temple and holds her longer than Daphne thought she would, and it’s something she holds on to when she leaves.

 

 

The press tour starts in Los Angeles and she’s up by five on her first morning, with two makeup artists brushing eyeshadow and foundation onto her face before she’s even gotten a drop of caffeine in her system. She slips into autopilot - her ‘press tour’ mode, developed and refined after years upon years of suffering through them. She fawns and preens and titters and does everything they expect her to, and lets the ache brim and brim inside her, never lets it show.

She doesn’t break even when they finally finish up for the day at ten, even when she returns to the privacy of her hotel room where she can change out of her dress and run a bath and just knock out. One day down, many to go.

She’s just changed into fresh clothes when there’s a knock at the door and a faint shout beyond it. “Housekeeping.” 

“I don’t need anything, thank you,” she calls back. 

But the knock comes again, and again, insistent. If she were less tired Daphne thinks she would be more wary, more terrified, and call for security, but she’s _exhausted_ and it’s day one and it feels like time is dragging and all she wants is to be _back home_ with the people she _loves_ and it’s ten-thirty and housekeeping seems to be being a dick so she just goes to the door and flings it open and - 

_“… Lou?”_

Lou stands there in the hallway, leather jacket wrapped securely around her shoulders, holding two tubs of ice cream and smiling at Daphne’s stunned shock. “Hey.” 

“You’re not housekeeping,” Daphne blurts out, because it’s the first thing her brain comes up with.

“No, I’m delivery,” Lou agrees, pushing one tub of ice cream in her direction. “We should probably start eating these before they melt.”

Lou lets herself in and shuts the door behind her, one hand on the small of Daphne’s back as she guides her back into the room towards the bed. “They do provide spoons, don’t they?”

“You’re in Los Angeles,” Daphne says, still not processing the fact that Lou is _in her hotel room at ten-thirty pm._ She left the warehouse a week earlier than Daphne did, saying something vague about a road trip and a new bike she wanted to buy, so how and why is she - 

And then the pieces just fall into place. Daphne’s jaw drops and she swings around to stare at Lou, who’s removing the plastic from the ice cream tubs and opening one. “You _rode_ here from _New York?”_

“Like I said, I bought a new bike. I just didn’t mention that the buyer lived in California. So I took a nice leisurely ride across the country, traded off my old bike, and my new one’s safely parked in a lot downstairs while I eat ice cream in your hotel room.” Lou shrugs and passes Daphne a tub and a spoon. “Macadamia nut for you, right?” 

The questions swell on Daphne’s tongue - _what? how? why?_ \- but it’s late, and she’s already feeling lonely, and Lou is in front of her with Haagen-Dazs, and Daphne can’t see how any of this is a bad thing. She takes the proferred ice cream and starts digging in. It’s amazing, melting in her mouth, sweet and rich and creamy, and she almost moans from how good it is. Lou watches her, smiling. “Eat what you can, and then sleep. You have an early morning tomorrow.”

Daphne doesn’t bother asking how she knows - Nine Ball probably knows the schedule of the press tour better than Daphne does herself and definitely shared the information with everyone else. She snuggles up against the pillows, under the sheets, and tucks in. Lou slips in by her side, letting her steal scoops of her ice cream as and when she likes. When Daphne gets tired, she quietly takes her tub away, puts it in the mini-fridge, then presses one hand to Daphne’s forehead. “Go to sleep. I’ll be here.”

 _You will?_ Daphne wants to say, _thinks_ she mumbles out loud, but she’s already dropping off, and the world fades out in favour of peaceable dark. 

 

 

When she wakes up to morning call, the room is empty save herself. Daphne stumbles into the bathroom feeling that familiar burning ache in her ribcage, and wonders briefly if she dreamed it all. 

She exits the bathroom after she’s done washing up to find two half-finished tubs of ice cream in the mini-fridge with a post-it note on one of the lids. It’s blank except for two letters in the bottom right corner - _x, L._

Daphne carefully puts the post-it in her wallet and tries not to let herself hope.

 

 

After they finish up in Los Angeles, they take the tour coach to Las Vegas. Lou isn’t there the first night, but when Daphne enters her hotel room, there’s a bouquet of exquisite flowers on her bed - asters, goldenrod, lavender. There’s no card, but Daphne breathes them in and they smell like home. 

She sleeps well that night. 

 

 

They go to Portland and Lou’s already on her balcony when Daphne checks in. There’s a bowl of fruit and some chocolate on the table - none of the fancy shit but simple, dollar-store candy Daphne has a weakness for. Lou cuts up an apple for her and tells her about the sights she saw en route from New York in that warm, rich tone of hers, spellbinding. Daphne doesn’t realise until she’s done eating, but she feels happier, lighter. It’s not like being home, but it is something. 

It’s been a week now, and Daphne misses being back at the warehouse but not as deeply as she did that last press tour. Lou is there, Lou makes her presence felt even if she’s not physically by Daphne’s side, and it isn’t everything but it feels like it might be enough to tide her through. 

“You like the chocolate?” Lou asks, when Daphne finishes her Kit Kat. “Constance and Tammy made the suggestions. I thought it was a good selection.”

Daphne thinks about Lou standing in a Walmart on the phone with Constance and Tammy, looking through the candy aisle with a basket in one hand and checking out. She swallows past the lump in her throat, with an effort. “It is. I love it.” 

Lou doesn’t respond, but she pushes another bar in Daphne’s direction.

 

 

They drive through to Seattle and Daphne spends most of it staring aimlessly out of the coach window in her room. 

Every so often, she thinks she sees a flash of silver and red, roaring down the highway - someone on a motorcycle, helmet gleaming and clad in black leather. She gets a glimpse, and then it disappears the next moment as the coach trundles along, and it’s like it was never there at all.

But Daphne knows.

 

 

They get to Denver before she finally snaps and asks. “What _are_ you doing here?” Why is Lou here, popping up in every state, in every hotel room, bringing Daphne comfort food and her company? She made it from New York to Los Angeles in a week; the return trip would take about as long if she didn’t keep stopping everywhere Daphne goes. For the life of her, Daphne can’t understand why Lou is keeping herself away from home longer than necessary, just to be Daphne’s shadow, lurking in the background and showing up when Daphne needs her most. 

Lou pauses, her spoon halfway to her mouth, and places it carefully back down beside her soup. “Eating overpriced hotel breakfast?” 

Daphne rolls her eyes. “You know what I mean.”

Lou looks at her. It’s a look that makes Daphne squirm in her seat - an expression unreadable, but brimming with something that she can’t name. “You were lonely.”

That’s not an answer, and Daphne wants to say so. Only she opens her mouth, and nothing comes out, because… because she likes it, having Lou here. Having Lou follow her as she pulls herself through this press tour, knowing somebody’s _there,_ that somebody has her back. She can’t think of a single thing to say that won’t drive Lou back home. And if Lou goes home, she will be alone for another month and a half, and isn’t that what she was dreading in the first place? 

She goes back to her soup in silence. So does Lou. 

When she comes back that night, there is a single magnolia on her pillow, and the lingering scent of leather and gas and perfume in the air.

 

 

In Omaha, Nine Ball video-calls her. 

“You doing okay?” Nine Ball’s not really one for words, or mushy declarations of affection, but Daphne knows her girls, now, and the concern is evident. “How’s the tour treating you?”

“It’s shit, what’s new,” Daphne replies, but her thoughts drift to Lou. “But I’m okay.” 

Nine Ball’s expression softens, like she knows - of course she does. “One more month, yeah?”

“One more month,” Daphne agrees, and wonders why something aches above her breastbone. 

 

 

She gets a day off in Cincinnati, and she wakes up that morning to a text from Lou - _downstairs, parking lot._

Daphne wears black, something casual and nondescript, brings all her necessities. Lou meets her in the hotel lot, standing by her bike with one helmet on the seat and another under her arm. 

“We’re going for a ride today,” she declares. “Letting loose, forgetting about the movie and the tour and the paps and everything else for a couple of hours.” 

She’s been a second rider before, but somehow, sitting on the back of Lou’s bike makes Daphne feel like this is the first time. Everything seems brighter, sharper - the wind in her hair, the smell of the exhaust, her arms around Lou’s waist as the bike screams down the streets. They stop at a tiny coffeeshop where nobody asks her for an autograph or a selfie or treats her like Hollywood’s angel. They have pastries and good coffee, and talk, and laugh. It feels like a dream, the kind you don’t want to wake up from.

It goes without saying that it is the best day of the whole press tour.

 

 

They arrive in Philadelphia and Daphne’s heart hurts from how close they are to home than they have been in weeks. Two hours on Lou’s bike and they could be back where they belong, but she has to stay and repeat the same answers to the same questions for what feels like the thousandth time. 

When Lou comes over that night, Daphne is curled up on the bed crying, arms around her knees. “I’m tired,” she says, and it comes out as a sob - she sounds like a whiny brat, even to herself, but it’s the truth, nothing but the truth. “I just want to go home.” 

Lou wraps her in a hug, her slender frame pressed tight to Daphne’s own. Daphne can feel the rise and fall of her chest, her pulse, can hear her breathing. She’s warm and solid and feels like the one real, good thing in Daphne’s world. 

It happens, on tours as long as this one, especially back when she was on her own - the whole world used to narrow down onto the tour and nothing but the tour. Her whole life was interviews, hotel rooms, the coach, defining her past and her present and her future. Like everything else aside from it didn’t really exist. It feels a bit like that now. Lou’s presence has helped, but she’s still here, repeating her routine again and again, and she is so _tired._

“Just a little longer,” Lou murmurs, and Daphne knows this. She _knows._ She just can’t figure out why it feels like it’s always going to be this way.

 

 

There’s just one week left in the tour when they reach Providence. She’s going home soon. 

She doesn’t think relief and joy and gratitude feel like this - like she’s sinking in tar, up to her ankles, like there are burrs in her throat. She’s pretty sure they don’t. 

She should be relieved and she should be joyous and she should be grateful that she’s finally getting to go home.

She _should_ be.

Funny how ‘should’ so rarely is. 

 

 

In Manchester, Lou stays the night for the first time, mostly because she falls asleep in the hotel bed while they’re talking. Daphne lets her gaze roam across Lou’s features, and before she can stop herself, brings her hand up to trace the line of Lou’s cheekbones, her jaw. Lou is beautiful - truly, classically beautiful. And she is quietly kind, and deeply intelligent, and makes Daphne feel like she never has to be afraid. 

The past two months have been bearable because she has been following Daphne, always a step behind and watching her back. Always there, even if Daphne can’t see her. Keeping her safe. Giving her a slice of home and security to hold on to. Lou has been roving, a tether for Daphne so she knows where she came from, and where she will eventually end back up. 

She didn’t even realise it but maybe some things didn’t change. Maybe her whole world became this - travelling, and being her Hollywood self, and Lou. 

When they go home, everything changes. When they go home, they go back to what they were, and everything she knows and is sure of needs to shift and adjust again. When they go home, Daphne realises, and it hits like a slug in her gut - Lou isn’t hers to call her own. Lou won’t - _can’t_ \- be her world and she will not be Lou’s either. 

And for the first time in her life, she is afraid to return.

 

 

They close the tour in New York itself, back home, which is fitting and also convenient. The drive back home will take under an hour, then they’ll both be back with the other six. Home. 

There’s a closing party and Daphne attends out of obligation but slips out around midnight. Lou’s waiting on the street, cutting a familiar figure in the night, and god, it hurts to know that she won’t be seeing it again for a long time, after tonight. 

They make the ride home in silence. Daphne leans against Lou’s shoulder and wishes she could press her cheek against Lou’s jacket without the helmet in the way. Anything for one more touch, one more moment of closeness, where the entire universe centres on just the two of them and nothing else matters, or even exists, not really. 

Lou pulls up and they drive into the garage, slowing to a stop. She takes Daphne’s helmet from her and places it on the seat, and - doesn’t open the garage door. Just leans against her bike and looks at Daphne. “You were quiet tonight.” 

Daphne averts her gaze. “It’s been a long day.”

“A long two months,” Lou agrees, tilting her head. “But that’s not it.” 

It’s not, but how can Daphne say anything else? How can she explain it to Lou when she can barely explain it to herself? 

Instead she summons her courage. Looks up to stare Lou square in the eye and try not to let her voice shake. “What now?” 

Lou furrows her brow. “What do you mean?”

“What now?” _What now, now that we’re home? What now, now that this is over? What now, now that you don’t have some twisted obligation to be by my side, and I won’t have the assurance that you’ll be there with me when I feel lost and lonely? What if I still want you by my side? What if I still want to be with you?_

_Do you?_

She doesn’t say any of that, but Lou’s always been smart, always been perceptive. Something about her expression softens by degrees, and then she steps closer, cupping Daphne’s cheek. “You mean what am I going to do from here on out?”

Not exactly, but - close enough. Daphne nods, and Lou laughs under her breath. _“I’m following you now,”_ she quotes. _“I’m just going to follow you everywhere. I’m just going to follow you for the rest of my life.”_

Daphne can barely breathe as Lou’s fingertips skim over her jaw, her smile small and real. If anyone else - anyone in the world - had said that it would sound weird and creepy as shit, but it’s not anyone else. It’s coming from Lou - Lou, who’s spent the last two months giving up everything else she could have been doing to be with her; Lou, who knows exactly what she needs and has never begrudged giving it to her; Lou, who she’s been falling in love with so slow so steady, like an inevitability. 

She doesn’t know how to respond, doesn’t have the words, so instead she leans in, leans up. Presses her mouth to Lou’s and puts everything she can’t say into it. Lou’s hands immediately drop to wrap around her waist and pull her flush to her front, kissing back, and Daphne finally knows where she belongs, and where she wants to be.

“Welcome home,” Lou murmurs against her lips, thumbs brushing her cheekbones and wiping away the tears in Daphne’s eyes. Daphne laughs, letting herself melt into it, into the sheer truth of it. “I’m home.” 

**Author's Note:**

> flower meanings - asters symbolise patience, goldenrod symbolises encouragement, lavender symbolises elegance & grace & refinement, magnolias symbolise dignity & nobility.
> 
> yes the quote is from spiderman lmao that scene between gwen & peter is the most beautiful thing i've ever seen & that quote has stayed with me forever.


End file.
